The acquisition of customers by a bank or other financial institution can be difficult. For example, banks typically encounter high customer acquisition costs and slow adoption rates by target audiences. In addition, the products and services offered by banks have become commodities (making price an important means of competition).
Many college-age students already have at least some type of financial relationship with their educational institution. For example, a student may pay tuition and/or receive financial aid via the university. Note that the acquisition of college-age students can be especially important for a bank, because a person at this age is often establishing his or her first banking relationship. It can be difficult, however, for a bank to effectively target advertising and other promotional material to college-age students.
One known type of financial relationship between a student and an educational institution is via a campus identification card. For example, a student may store fifty dollars on a campus identification card to be used when making copies in a school library and/or minor purchases from an on-campus or local merchant. The adoption rate for this type of service is often over eighty percent. However, a stored-value approach is limited in scope. That is, many types of banking services cannot be provided via a stored-value card (e.g., the ability to write checks).
It is also known that an educational institution can create a more complicated campus identification program, often referred to as a “onecard” system, to let a student use a single card as a form of identification, a financial instrument, a room or building key, and a meal ticket. For example, the educational institution might create an on-campus, closed transaction network that includes vending machines, laundry machines, Point Of Sale (POS) terminals, photocopiers, and/or computer printing stations. These various purchase points might be wired to a central server that executes software to process transactions, track balances, and/or control privileges. A student may load money onto his or her account (e.g., by giving money to the school), and the server can then track how the money is spent.
Some programs have combined an off-campus Automated Teller Machine (ATM) card (e.g., associated with a bank account) and an on-campus onecard into a single physical card. However, the bank account and the on-campus stored value accounts remain separate. This “atomic” account approach can create some convenience for students (e.g., because he or she only needs to carry one card), and may even provide some marketing opportunity for the bank, but does not offer full integration and benefits. For example, the card will not act as a signature-based debit card.
Note that online banks may be particularly interested in acquiring college-age students. For example, college-age students are more likely to have experience with, and access to, online services as compared to other people. Thus, college-age students are often the most likely adopters of online banking services.